RemittancesGateway.org

Remittances on the rise in Tajikistan

Tuesday, 01 February 2011 08:57

Source: CentralAsiaNewsWire.com

Foreign workers’ remittances sent home to Tajikistan climbed by more than one-quarter to reach $2.1 billion in 2010, according to figures released by the head of the National Bank of Tajikistan (NBT).

Total remittances from January to November 2010 were up 27 percent over the same period in 2009, but remained below pre-global crisis levels, said central bank chief Sharif Rahimzoda.

“Compared to 2009 remittances to Tajik banks considerably increased last year, but they are still far from the record figures of 2008, when $2.6 billion were remitted to banks in Tajikistan,” the AsiaPlus news agency cited the NBT head as telling a press conference in the capital Dushanbe.

Remittances plummeted by 31.4 percent from 2008 to 2009 to $1.8 billion.

Rahimzoda blamed the decline on the negative impact of the global financial downturn on the Russian economy, which is the favored market for Tajik labor migrants.

Large numbers of men look abroad for work, because there are few jobs in Tajikistan, the poorest of five former Soviet republics in Central Asia.

Official figures from the government in Dushanbe put the number of Tajiks working in Russia at 730,000, or 90 percent of its foreign workers.

The World Bank estimated that remittances amount to more than one-third of the country’s GDP, according to the BBC news agency.

Tajikistan has a population of around 7 million people.